David Emery OnlineKaiser Chiefs ... but under your control
And so to The Future Is Medieval. Without any buildup, fanfare or whatever you want to call the pop equivalent of leaving Red Bull cans scattered around Leeds city centre, the successor to 2008's Off With Their Heads appeared on Kaiser Chiefs' website on Friday. In doing so, it effectively heralds the arrival of the world's first bespoke album. Ten songs from a choice of 20 for £7.50 – no more, no less – but what those songs are, and the order in which they run, is down to you.
An interesting variation of the “In Rainbows” model – I thought we were done with that, to be honest, as it’s a model that’s not actually very good at selling records if you’re not Radiohead…
Visit ➔Mobile + Websockets + CSS 3D
Thanks to Pusher hosting websocket service, i was able to create this quick experiment using smartphones' accelerometer, websockets (with fallback to flash) and CSS 3D magic.
This is very cool – it lets you control an object in 3d space in your desktop browser using the accelerometer in your phone, all just using clever javascript and CSS.
Visit ➔Microsoft unveils Windows 8
There'll be two kinds of applications for Windows 8, one that runs in a traditional desktop, and the other pseudo-mobile apps based on HTML5 and Javascript, but both environments -- rather, the entire OS -- have been designed from the ground up for touchscreen use. Keyboard and mouse will still be options for both sets of programs.
Well this looks pretty nice – which for Microsoft is generally no mean feat – but I wonder if it would actually work that well in practice? The information density is pretty low so I can see a lot of sliding and tapping to get to the content you’re after at any given time. Also, the look would fall down pretty quickly if 3rd party devs don’t stick to it carefully so either it’s going to be hemmed in tightly or it won’t ever look that nice in practice (imagine all the garbage that normally gets pre-loaded on a PC integrated into that demo and you get what I mean).
Also, don’t get me started about how traditional apps are integrated in – i.e, they’re not, you just use them exactly like you always have. So, in essence Microsoft have welded a tablet optimised version of Windows Phone 7 onto the top of Windows 7 in the hope it will all work out nicely…
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Facebook To Launch Music Service With Spotify
Facebook has partnered with Spotify on a music-streaming service that could be launched in as little as two weeks, sources close to the deal have told Forbes.
The integrated service is currently going through testing, but when launched, Facebook users will see a Spotify icon appear on the left side of their newsfeed, along with the usual icons for photos and events.
Well that would certainly be interesting. Presumably this would tie right into Spotify’s (eventual) US launch as well – I’d be surprised if Facebook would do a major venture with someone without US presence.
This comment by Spotify on the story is hardly much of a denial either.
Visit ➔Bronze
Bronze is a new non-interactive music format in which recorded material is transformed in real time, generating a unique and constantly evolving interpretation of a song on each listen.
The first piece of music available in Bronze will be Flesh Freeze by Gwilym Gold.
Interesting stab at the “music as app” concept – particularly of note as it’s not the traditional ambient electronic instrumental music that you normal get with this sort of thing – it has lyrics and everything.
Visit ➔Hollywood shuns intelligent entertainment. The games industry doesn't. Guess who's winning?
And then there's LA Noire, the James Ellroy-inspired crime drama, which has caused a stir, and rightly so, with its firm focus on narrative and staggering new facial animation technology. I'm a massive dweeb who keeps up with the latest gaming developments, and even I was astounded at what they've pulled off here. You're watching actors give genuine performances – within something that is still defiantly and unapologetically a video game.
There’s no doubt that LA Noire isn’t perfect – the game elements in places are a little bit repetitive maybe, and I for one have frequent issues with the interrogation scenes where I have no real idea what my character is going to say next – but there’s also no doubt that it has pushed the medium of interactive storytelling on several great strides.
If anything, it gets all the film-like bits right more so then the game like elements (and more right then many films do), but the way it melds the two together – you really are interacting with the story – is what’s most impressive.
Visit ➔Amazon Sells Entire New Lady Gaga Album For $0.99
We've seen deep discounting before from Amazon. But today the online retailer is hit new lows by offering a download of the new Lady Gaga album "Born This Way" along with a digital version of the CD booklet today only for just 99 cents
Now, I think there’s a reasonable debate to have over what the correct price of an album should be (and whether something more like £4.99 could work out better as a general price point, as some people have argued previously), but I think we can all agree that this just a little bit too low?
Obviously it’s a piece of marketing for the new Amazon CloudDrive service, but considering that it seems to have crashed due to demand I’d hardly say it was money well spent.
I wonder if all those 99¢ album sales count for SoundScan, and hence whether we’re going to see a crazy-high first week figure for the album in the US next week (which is do doubt going to be high anyway)?
Visit ➔3D (sort of) on your iPad without glasses
What i3D does instead is show you several scenes that change perspective as you tilt your iPad side to side and up and down. The effect does not depend on the gyros built into the iPad, but instead uses the camera to track the position of your head and render a changing perspective in real time.
A little bit buggy – it depends a lot I think on the quality of the lighting where you are and the distance you are from the camera – but this is really pretty nifty – 3D without glasses or funny screens (like the 3DS).
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